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NLJ this week: How much can we rely on a witness’s memory?

07 March 2025
Issue: 8107 / Categories: Legal News , Procedure & practice , Dispute resolution
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Memory is fallible, so how should litigation lawyers be aware of this when preparing witness statements? Mary Young, partner, and Laurence Clarke, senior associate, in the dispute resolution team at Kingsley Napley, discuss the unreliability of memory and court procedure rules introduced nearly four years ago on record-keeping and preparation of witness statements.

One problem, as they explain, is that ‘through the process of remembering or recalling events, an individual can change or edit their own recollection’.

Young and Clarke write: ‘The difficulty for a judge is that they may be faced with two witnesses who give different accounts of the same events, while at the same time both being entirely honest and fully believing that the evidence they give is accurate.’ 

MOVERS & SHAKERS

Hugh James—Phil Edwards

Hugh James—Phil Edwards

Serious injury teambolstered by high-profile partner hire

Freeths—Melanie Stancliffe

Freeths—Melanie Stancliffe

Firm strengthens employment team with partner hire

DAC Beachcroft—Tim Barr

DAC Beachcroft—Tim Barr

Lawyers’ liability practice strengthened with partner appointment in London

NEWS
Tech companies will be legally required to prevent material that encourages or assists serious self-harm appearing on their platforms, under Online Safety Act 2023 regulations due to come into force in the autumn
Commercial leasehold, the defence of insanity and ‘consent’ in the criminal law are among the next tranche of projects for the Law Commission
The Bar has a culture of ‘impunity’ and ‘collusive bystanding’ in which making a complaint is deemed career-ending due to a ‘cohort of untouchables’ at the top, Baroness Harriet Harman KC has found
Lawyers have broadly welcomed plans to electronically tag up to 22,000 more offenders, scrap most prison terms below a year and make prisoners ‘earn’ early release
David Lammy, Ellie Reeves and Baroness Levitt have taken up office at the Ministry of Justice, following the cabinet reshuffle
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